you won't like me when i'm angry

you won't like me when i'm angry

steve

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well, i've found my home	[Nov. 17th, 2006\|11:46 pm]
since fourth grade, i've been an awkward, somewhat socially outcast kid, who has a hard time fitting in and adapting to others' opinions. while this is a very good thing for me, it's made school very difficult to deal with sometimes. and the fact that i've been with the same people for the whole damn time does NOT help that. i was elected 'most changed' senior this year, i am soooooo proud of that. so proud. this year, i became truly involved with the performing arts, shed the skin of the programs that weren't developing me, and i can finally stop lying when i say that i don't care about the opinions of my classmates. a lot of people think i've become really weird all of a sudden, a lot of people don't really talk to me. but you know what? i'm happy. for the first time since third grade, i'm honest to (god) non-superficially happy with my place in life. today was thespian conference. it truly rocked. a lot. i went with my school, but i learned today that i have more friends outside of chaparral than i do in it. and i honestly like these people!! i can't wait for tomorrow. ps, senior year rocks and i actually even, for the most part, like my classes! i mean, government really sucks a lot, but in english yesterday we did the most interesting thing ever--syntax. and i feel that knowing more about and actually studying my own syntax has given me an entirely new depth to my writing. and physics? wow. i'm becoming such a physics nerd! i even laugh at hammersley's jokes! (i'm always the only person in class laughing or responding to her questions) today i saw a waiter carrying a tray, and i subconsciously determined the approximate center of mass and sketched a quick force digram in my head. and i love firebird word anchoring so much sometimes. like today. it was just fun! i know nobody actually watches it, but it was so funny when the crazy football guys were trying to distract us and then started popping up into the scene! i even made up an announcement today! just--on the spot! and i love to just break out in song or character. and nobody gets it! i understand why people think i'm weird. it's because i'm fucking weird. another note: i've stopped putting up with bullshit and started being more forward. and leaving early and not feeling obligated to be tied to chaparral is amazing. it's changed my life!
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(no subject)	[Nov. 6th, 2006\|03:03 pm]
Dear Friend, Today my high school had a small blood drive. As a homosexual student, I knew that my blood would not be accepted. For those of you who don't already know, the Food and Drug Administration has many regulations for who is a healthy candidate for blood donation. Among the questions asked are such logical questions, such as, have you ever been diagnosed with hepatitis? Or have you been exposed to another person's blood through intravenous (needle) use? Are you a hemophiliac? But then there’s this one: in order to 'take a measure against the spread of HIV/AIDS' the FDA has put a strict ban on blood taken from any man who has had sex with any other man since 1977 (1977 being the year that the first cases of HIV/AIDS were identified). The exact wording of the question is as follows: "Are you a man who has had sexual contact with another man or are you a female who has had sexual contact with a man who has had sexual contact with another man since 1977?" This measure is discriminatory and the facts used to establish its credibility are flawed. In claiming to be removing the highest risk category, they are actually ignoring statistics that show homosexuals do not really compose the largest portion of HIV/AIDS cases, and are rather, just preventing good blood from being donated, and are ironically keeping life-saving blood from patients who really need it and who may die if it is not received. I was screened by a young female nurse at a small cloth cubicle-like desk with a chair and a computer. After a short while, she stumbled upon the gay question, and at my affirmative answer, she seemed uneasy for a moment, took a breath, then turned to me and informed me I was not an eligible candidate. Of course, I was not surprised, as I had seen this coming, so I turned to her to ask her a few questions, citing CDC and WHO statistics regarding other risk categories and percentages of HIV/AIDS cases by different risk category and type of infection. When I asked her why certain ethnic groups, such as African-Americans and Hispanics/Latinos were not banned from donating blood (as the second and third highest risk groups under the race category, she launched into a series of obviously rehearsed answers, informing me that some African groups (notice she did not specify African-American, as she was indirectly inferring to blood drives in the heart of the AIDS epidemic, Africa) were not allowed to donate either. Then she changed topic, “Besides, it’s more of a lifestyle thing, I think. Because gay people are promiscuous (notice she said “are” not “tend to be,” or “may behave,”), and having this sort of sexual history—” And this is where I had to cut her off, with “Ok, you can stop right there. That is a huge generalization. Hi, my name is Steve Russell. I am gay and I have only had sex with one other person in my lifetime. I can not count on one hand the number of heterosexuals I know who have several, even up to ten or more sexual partners in a year, and who had lost their virginity between the ages of 14 and 16. Thank you for your time, I have heard enough.” She did not reply, and I walked back to the small lobby and took a t-shirt I had prepared for the day, and put it over my head, and looked back to her glaring face so she could read it. This is what my shirt said: I would LOVE to donate, but unfortunately, I can’t… The FDA does not allow gay men to donate blood based on claims that by doing so, they are eliminating a high-risk category for HIV/AIDS and saving the lives of those who need blood transfusions. But if approximately 50% of adults with HIV/AIDS worldwide are women1, more than 75% of adults with HIV/AIDS worldwide were infected through heterosexual intercourse2 and if there are other high-risk categories, like African-Americans and Latinos3, and if ALL blood is screened before distribution… Wouldn’t it make more sense for all people to be asked if they were HIV positive rather than if they were gay? My blood could save lives too! 1 Society for Women’s Health Research 2 Health Square 3 The Centers for Disease Control Hopefully, you understand the discriminatory nature of this regulation and agree with me on its injustice to homosexuals. I hope you will copy this letter and send it to all your friends, coworkers, family and acquaintances, and I hope that you will join me in signing the petition below to make the FDA allow homosexual men to donate blood, for, as we all know: Any life that is in danger or in need is a life worth saving. Donate Blood! Steve Russell The petition can be found at: http://www.PetitionOnline.com/gdonors/petition.html
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it's raining cats and dogs	[Oct. 1st, 2006\|01:39 am]
you know what i like most about cats? they're their own boss. for serious. if you tell a cat 'no' for doing something bad, it won't stop. it'll try it again. if you scold the cat furiously for that bad thing, it'll storm off and give you a cold shoulder for a few hours, until you apologize and stroke it fondly. there's this little cubby in my bookcase, behind my dvd's and videogames, where reeces loves to lay down. i can't express in numbers the frequency i have to scold her for doing this act. if the door's open or she's in a bad mood, she'll leave and i won't see her for a day or two. and when she sees me, she'll pretend she didn't notice i was there and keep hunting whatever it was she was going after, or continue her sweet little nap without any heed of my presence at all. eventually, i fold and pick her up or call her name or ruffle the space between her ears that drives her wild. i can't help but think that this whole time, she's laughing at me inside for not being as stubborn or as strong as her. what made me think of this was when, five minutes ago, while muching on some cold pizza, i spied the dog, tess giving me shifty beggar's eyes, then pretending to not look every time i noticed. when i said 'no' she would hide her head, and when i'd had enough of her trying to steal my snack with her eyes, she went and laid down somewhere out of sight, where the pizza could no longer torment her and she could lick her wounds for having lost that battle. i thought of what would have happened were reece sitting on the stool right then and i told her the pizza was mine. i could just picture her putting her forelegs on my side and looking into my eyes, saying, 'ok bub. i want some of the damn pizza.' then, if i moved where she couldn't reach and after a few more pleading meows, she would probably [metaphorically] roll her eyes and slink away, thinking about what a selfish prick i was. dog lovers probably love this comparison, because it puts the dog in the more loyal place. it makes tessa the little obedient angel and my little reece is the demanding bitch. but here's how i see it and why i'm a cat lover: the dog is afraid of your rejection and is entirely dependent on you, much like a trophy housewife or small child. but i perfer the company of someone who could just as easily get up and leave (as the cat has on occasion). but she loves me on a deeper, personal level. she comes back. the dog just loves me because i have the pizza. she loves me because she needs my support to be ok. if she ran away one day and we never found her and she found a new home, i'm sure she'd forget about us entirely and be stoked shitless with her new home. i'm not saying that the cat wouldn't be happy in the perfect situation. probably the exact opposite. but she wouldn't be happy because she was getting more atention or because the food was better. she'd be happy because she found peopel who treated her better. i guess if i had to put in one word what a cat has that a dog doesn't, it would be, 'depth.' the cat is more of a friend, and when she sleeps on your bed, you know it's not just because she seeks comfort, but because she respects you enough to be ok with sleeping there. the dog sleeps there because she loves having a body near that she can feel proud of. to her, you're a trophy. you're caulk to fill the gap, you're a cool person, but that's just for tonight. we'll see about tomorrow. i like this metaphor a lot and i like to think about the people i know as dogs and cats. we all have these two sides: the fake, really outgoing and 'genuine' side and the real, not perfect, honest despite what that may mean side. i guess we need both of these sides at different times and when we meet someone, we may be a cat but a month later, we're dogs together. and if we meet someone as a dog, we may learn years later that they deserve our feline respect. so, when it boils down to it, which one are you and when? are you the loyal, shallow dog, or the honest, prissy cat?
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(no subject)

[Oct. 1st, 2006|12:39 am]

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cynical

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well, i don't really think i'm sick anymore. and i feel i should put that up after i've talked about it so much. the doctor said i have mono, and i'm just waiting on the test results, but i don't feel like i have mono. i just feel hot (as in the temperature). my aunt said she thinks the steroids i'm taking for my swollen tonsils are giving me a lot of energy, and part of me believes her, because sometimes i'm exhausted and sometimes my tonsils still hurt. but i'd like to be done with being sick. butuh.. i'm not allowed to do anything for the next two days so i can catch up on the week of school i missed. i'd really kinda like this to turn out to be mono though, because that means a lot of attention, but at the same time a lot of isolation. and plus, then thirty years from now i won't die of mono. that's probably the biggest plus. yeah. i watched superstart tonight. it was funny. then i stripped. that was.. ____. alys enjoyed it. but i think it may have confused her some when the iced tea started spilling out of my pants. but you just have to be ready for these things, you know? well i need to go clean the house becasue my mom's coming home tomorrow. and i need to take my ragin' 'roids. because if i don't my body might do something we don't want it to do. like implode or turn purple or something. i need to make more people to read my livejournal. i also need to change my layout.

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